Two thirds of the way through the three-day qualifying period for a pair of St. Charles Parish Council races, three candidates had qualified in the race to replace recently-resigned Councilman Shelley Tastet in the 2nd district, and one candidate qualified to run for the 7th District council seat, given up by Councilman Dennis Nuss. The election is April 6. Qualifying began Wednesday and closes at 5 pm on Friday, Feb. 15.

In the 2nd District, William "Billy" Woodruff, Vanessa Johnson and Mary Keller Clulee signed up. Clulee's husband is Neal Clulee, the controversial parish nominee for the New Orleans Aviation Board who recently filed a defamation suit against St. Charles Parish President V.J. St. Pierre.

Woodruff and Clulee are Republicans. Johnson is a Democrat.

A single candidate, Julia Fisher-Perrier, has qualified to run in the 7th District.

Nuss announced his resignation in October of last year, in order to move with his family to the Houston area for a job opportunity, and Fisher-Perrier was appointed to temporarily fill the position. Tastet stepped down in December, citing health issues as reason for his resignation. On January 28, Tastet's wife, Mary Tastet, was appointed by the council as his interim replacement. Mary Clulee too was also nominated for the interim position, but did not receive a unanimous vote from the council.

Woodruff, 61, worked for the St. Charles Parish Department of Public Works for more than 27 years before retiring in October of last year - and he's already bored, he said.

"I've been retired for four months and I'm bored already!" he said. "I'm retired, I'm single, I've got no kids at home. I'm looking to get out of retirement and back in the game, to really do something good for the people in my district. After all, you can only do so much fishing."

Woodruff said he's intimately familiar with the inner-workings of St. Charles Parish, and will focus his campaign around pushing the West Bank protection levee forward, as well as developing a new recreational boat launch in Des Allemands.

"As a worker, I used to run heavy equipment for the parish. I had to keep the canals open, and keep up the levees we do have," he said. "And it's not much.

There's a lot I want to get into," he said. "And I've got as good a chance [of winning] as anyone."

Mary Clulee, a fellow Republican, says her breadth of political experience makes her uniquely qualified for a seat on the St. Charles Parish Council. Clulee's campaign will also focus on increased hurricane protection in St. Charles, as well as fixing drainage issues throughout the parish.

"I've been involved in other people's races in the past, probably since I was eighteen years old, when I first got the right to vote," Clulee said. "I've lived in St. Charles all my life, I'm very familiar with the community, its needs and the way government works."

Vanessa Johnson, 54, a retired St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office employee, says she doesn't consider herself a politician - and that's exactly the point. A published author of romance novels and a part-time substitute teacher, Johnson said her interest in joining the council stems from her desire to help her fellow citizens.

"I've always had a love of helping others," she said. "I worked for the Sheriff's Office for 30 years, and in a way that's a political job. But I'm not a politician," she said. "I'm your neighbor."